Hectic Weekend!

If you thought that weekends couldn’t be hectic, here’s how my weekend went. First I am working with my boss on reviewing some work on Friday night. While we are doing that, boss gets a mail which says that my work is postponed by 2 weeks. Boss tells me that I should leave early and leave for Madras for a quiz that I had been planning to attend.

I had ditched plans to attend this quiz since I was very keen on finishing my work. For whatever reason I managed to get my dad at the 11th hour, book tickets, rush home, pack luggage and leave for Madras!

Saturday begins at the home of a friend (Subodh) in Adyar, where I get ready for a long and hectic day. First breakfast at one outlet of a chain of restaurants in Madras called Sangeetha. Next stop for booking return tickets. Along comes Ramakant (my friend, philosopher, guide and batchmate from IIML) who’s gotten married recently. After we say hi to his new family, we move on a bookshop named Odyssey. After I have shortlisted some books I shall be buying soon, we leave.

By the way, there’s this new book called “Things that Work” which has been put together by some Department of the Central Government for some grievances etc! Its got a lovely cover which has a falling apple. Its got contributions by some change agents in modern India, describing things they spearheaded - NRN Murthy on the Infy story, Chandrababu Naidu on egovernance, Verghese Kurien on the AMUL story, etc. I would it to recommend anyone who wants to evangelize for India to buy this book. Atleast you will have some nice, optimistic stuff to talk about India and not crib about x1, x2, x3 – xn. If any of you wants to buy this, its Rs.495. I can buy it and send it to you and it should still cost less if you are abroad and want to buy this. Also checked out a book named Maximum City by a guy named Suketu about Mumbai (A pal had recommended it after reading my blog on Mumbai). Seems readable. So for now, I have 2 books on my wishlist.

After this, I went to West Mambalam in an auto, driven by an interesting driver. One of the advantages of being able to speak multiple languages is that you can strike up a conversation with most people, with little effort. My auto driver and me got talking about traffic in Madras. I did my own share of flaunting telling him how Delhi’s traffic is the scariest as you don’t know which way people will go. Only the roads suck in Bangalore! From my limited knowledge of Madras. I was trying to tell him that only Chetpet and Nungambakkam had jams in Madras, while in Bangalore, every area had jams. In the meanwhile, we saw some guy dragging another one by grabbing his collar. My driver went crazy. He said, if ever one gets into an accident, one should pay up or opt for insurance. You don’t need to rough up anyone. He said, “lets assume for a moment that the girl friend of the guy who’s getting shoved around passes by. Isn’t our “dragged” beau embarrassed!? Anyways we saw a two wheeler and a car parked, further on the road. Obviously the two wheeler had hit the car from behind. My driver’s take was, anytime someone tries to scare you, be the first one to raise the hand. The other guy is immediately psyched and may think twice before doing similarly, whoever be the errant. He then told me about some such exploit of his!

Then he got a call on his cell! His sister had called and he had to resoilve some family finances. When I told him that I was in a hurry, he said that the matter couldn’t wait, although he doesn’t like picking his cell while driving!

Finally, I did reach West Mambalam. I chatted up my friend and watched some cricket. Then another friend called and I was ready to go to Besant Nagar for lunch. Went to a place called Eden, which serves Continental food. Since I was late, I had ordered by phone and my good friend did the rest! We had a quick lunch while we caught up on life. How many times do you get to dine with a charming young lady and she foots the bill!

Next Stop: IITM SAC. IITM has a board which says that you should turn left at a point where there’s no road. Then there’s another sign board which points at the bushes! God, by the time I reach the venue, the quiz had already begun. All my hopes of qualifying took a nose dive and I ate humble pie and asked the organizers to announce for teams of 3 which needed a 4th member. Two teams raised their hand. One team I went to, backtracked and embarrassedly said that they were waiting for their friend who might arrive any moment. Saala, neither they did they qualify, nor did that non existent 4th member arrive. Next, the team of 3 eager kids. If ever, you want to sit with people who have a totally different take on life, sit with kids. Sadly these kids were a little out of place, but their hearts were in the right place. I managed to get about half of what was required to qualify. Another day, another place, things would have been different. In my enthusiasm to get all answers right, I managed to negate an apparently ‘silly/simple’ answer by the kids. Turned out that it was right and not many of the 200 teams got it! But the kids were happy that I got 12 more, which they didn’t. Nice folks.

And then the monstrous quiz began. It was good on quality but lousy on presentation as most questions were longer than 5 sentences and poorly presented. And then there were power cuts in between. The quiz finally ended at 9:10 pm, after having started around 5.

Anyways, I rushed to have dinner with another friend, Rathi who had been waiting for the quiz to end. We went to a place that was ‘close’ to where I was supposed to board my bus. The ‘ridiculously exorbitant price demanding auto driver spectre of Madras’ raised its head and I put myself at the mercy of a municipal bus that delivered me a good 15 mins before my bus left. Thank god for Volvo buses. The price seems justified, considering that I woke up, while dragging the blanket away from a patient attendant. Bangalore had arrived!

Start of another hectic day!!! First a quiz for all teams who weren’t in the ten ranked teams for the 2004-05 season. Having moved to Bangalore only a month ago, I was eligible. As luck would have it, my team mate didn’t arrive. Some unknown arrived and joined as a fourth member. Turned out to be very good as he began answering questions from the moment he arrived. Unfortunately, the age old tradition of missing by 0.5 points continued with my teams getting yet another honorable mention as one of teams which narrowly missed out. We went to Koshy’s to drown our sorrow temporarily and returned for a shot at the Open quiz, where the big guns were in action. Koshy’s is another place where the vegetarian dishes occupy about 15% of available total surface area of menu . Needless to say, didn’t have an extraordinary lunch. And as for the quiz, this time we did qualify. We managed to crack the main theme round ahead of all teams and finished fourth. No money, no gifts, just a little pride restored and a fond farewell for a fellow quizzer, who is leaving for studying management.

Who said weekends were leisurely. I am typing this close to midnight on a Sunday.

Here’s a nice question from the quiz at IITM.
“In the early 20th century the Krishna Raja Sagar Dam (popularly known as KRS) in Mysore dried up, revealing the bottom of the 150 ft deep reservoir with dead crocodiles, trees, an old submerged temple, etc. The localites perfomed rites to propitiate the rain gods for days on end. All this lack of water and attendant scenarios inspired something we all know!
What?”

For those of you who don’t know the answer, send me a mail and I’ll tell you.

Viva Bangalore. Over and Out :)